The Wiggles Go Pop at Rupp!

The Wiggles are coming to Rupp Arena on November 12, 2008 at 6:30 as part of their Pop Go The Wiggles Live! Tour. Tickets go on sale on Friday, October 3 at 10:00am. Hit the jump to read the full press release for more details about the show. Read more

Center for Elephant Conservation

Elephants are easily one of the most fascinating and awe-inspiring animals on our planet. While Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is dedicated to showcasing and teaching people about theses amazing animals, they’re dedication and care is much deeper than that. Read more

The Greatest Show On Earth

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Bellobration is in town and has performances throughout this weekend as well as some other fun events planned. On Friday at 1:00pm, there will be an Elephant Wash in Triangle Park in the middle of downtown Lexington. Also, ninety minutes before each show there will be an Animal Open House in the back parking lot of Rupp Arena. Hit the jump to read more details. Read more

Scarefest is Here…

Scarefest has officially started and is now open to the public. It is definitely something to experience. There are all sorts of booths with cool posters and art and memorabilia available, not too mention some really cool horror and paranormal celebrities. If you are thinking about going, it is open until 10pm Friday, 11am till 8pm Saturday, and 10am till 6pm on Sunday. Read more

Ringling Bros. Circus Giveaway

* This Contest Has Now Ended *
Another blog giveaway is ready for the taking. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey is helping us offer you an awesome experience for you and your family. The circus is coming up soon and will be at Rupp Arena from September 25 through the 28. Read more

Flashback Classic Rock Tour Cancelled

I regret to inform everyone that the Flashback Mystic Orchestra Tour has been cancelled. See the press release below for more detail about the reasoning.

FLASHBACK – THE CLASSIC ROCK EXPERIENCE
TOUR CANCELLED

LEXINGTON, KY (September 11, 2008) — The Tour Management of Flashback; The Classic Rock Experience featuring Mystic Orchestra, announced this morning that they are cancelling the fall tour, scheduled to stop at Rupp Arena on October 24th.

As this was a new production, the tour was experiencing a variety of technical challenges and tour management felt that it was best to revise and rebuild the show to create “the true rock concert experience” before continuing the tour.

Once the show is retooled, their plans are to tour again in the Spring of 2009. The tour management made extensive apologies for this cancellation but felt unless they could bring the best show possible to the fans, it was best to retool in the studio instead of developing the show on the road.
All tickets will be fully refunded at point of purchase. For more information, please call (859) 233-4567.

Nine Inch Photographs

Nine Inch Nails came to Rupp Arena on August 31 for their Light’s In The Sky Over North America Tour. Our house photographer, James Crisp, took some great photos of the show. Browse through them below in our Flickr slideshow.

Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nails played a nearly packed house in Lexington’s Rupp Arena last night. Trent Reznor, being something of a role-model for me as a visionary, one who embraces emerging technologies better than anyone else, and one who makes utterly incredible music, I had been excited for months since I first learned of it and began strongly promoting the show. I’ve said it before, Trent Reznor is a visionary, and I think unequivocally the most important man in music today. This was the show I had been the absolute most excited to see for the summer, because after being a lifelong fan since Pretty Hate Machine, and seeing them in 2006, I knew that this show would be artistic buffet of incredible sound, visuals and energy. Naturally, I was not let down in that regard.

Similar to the 2006 experience, the first song of the set, 99,000 began as the stadium lights were still illuminated, so as to catch people off guard. In 2006, it had been pinion which silently crept into our ears. I recall at that time recognizing it immediately and to begin getting into it. Last night, the crowd didn’t take quite as long to recognize the song being played and the crowd erupted as the stadium lights quickly faded to black and the blue and red stage lights revealed Trent and the rest of the crew.

In 2006, I was in the first row on the floor and the experience was surreal with the energy and angst of the crowd flowing along with the music. With this experience, detached from the energy of the crowd, I was able to give perhaps greater appreciation to the visual elements of the 3 layered LCD screens, and the beautiful imagery they created. Nine Inch Nails knows how to use a stage better than any band I have seen, fitting a wide number of instruments from the normal guitar, drums, mics, to less conventional things such as a dulcimer, marimba, water jugs, chimes, timpani, keys, multiple interactive LCD screens and more. As everyone was able to see, Trent set an electronic drum sequence using a large touch sensitive LCD screen just prior to Echoplex. What most people may ot have realized was that during The Great Destroyer, Robin Finck, Trent Reznor and Alessandro Cortini all appeared to be live mixing the LCD screen from white static to blue and green, incorporating several other visual elements into it, including the Microsoft blue screen of death. Each of these had a monitor in front of them with a touch senstive LCD screen on it which they appeared to be controlling. The visual element to this show blew away what they had done in 2006. It was magical.

Watching this show and realizing that Pretty Hate Machine was released in 1989, you can’t help but feel while Trent has been a rock god for years, that his evolution quickens, and never moreso than in the last two years. Having released the operatic Year Zero, alongside the incredible campaign he initiated to elevate the expereince of new media, to his later ran in Australia where he encouraged the Aussie’s to download his albums for free online, to dropping his record label and adopting what is in my opinion the best current and most sustainable method of distribution with Saul William’s album, as well as his release with Ghosts I-IV, to his thank you in The Slip. It has been a big year for music, and at the forefront, Nine Inch Nails. I mention this because you can see it in the way that the performance ran last night. From everyone I have spoken to, whether they’ve seen NIN once, twice, or twenty time, last night’s show has been the best. Trent’s energy commanded your attention, and the amount of time each of these guys have spent in studios and touring together has left them with incredibly tight and precise coordination, whether it is bringing walls of sound to a suddent and abrupt hault in the blink of an eye or putting together the beautiful pieces that is Ghosts.

I’ve heard a lot of people talk about Ghosts as though it were some major departure for the band, but can’t help but wonder if they don’t recall hints of what was to be Ghosts in tracks like A Warm Place from The Downward Spiral, arguably one of the more beautiful songs of the time. As the series of Ghosts songs began is when the LCD screen really came into the show. Serene piano-heavy music set to what might have been post Year Zero industrial landscape just before leading into the second best visual display of the night, a rain storm which hid the band from us only until a patch cleared up for us to see them, and finally, shattering. The best visual display of the night was no doubt a blue screen on The Greater Good, which showed what looked like a topographical map and the image of portions of Trent’s face and mic as he sang the subtle beauty of the that song. At the conclusion of the song, someone with a flashlight came to the stage to wipe the screen clean using a flashlight. As the person flashed the light at certain areas of the screen, the blue of the screen cleared away to reveal NIN again to us.

During Survivalism, a series of live feeds were set up showing various areas of the arena, namely Camera 1) Trent, 2) Crowd, 3) Bathroom sink, 4) Sound Guy, 5) Stairwell, 6) Crowd, and 7) Toilet. While some of the feeds were definitely live, we all have our doubts about the Camera 3 feed because during the song, it depicted a guy having sex with some girl from behind directly on the sink in focus (picture below). Also, the sound guy seems an odd choice, particularly since he happened to be going NUTS, but nevertheless, the feed was wonderful and played into the theme of the Year Zero very nicely. I would love to catch an all Year Zero show, even while fans are generally coming to hear their favorite Downward Spiral and Pretty Hate Machine songs, I think there would be so much room for a really creative set for Year Zero only.

The show ended with a fury of fan favorites, namely Only, The Hand that Feeds, and Head Like a Hole. By this time, the frustrations I had dealt with before the show were wiped completely from my mind and all I could do was appreciate what was happening as the NIN logo climbed its way down the LCD screen before standing prominently before us. For some it is merely a logo, and for others of us, a symbol of strength, edurance, innovation, and brilliance.

As Echoplex opened the encore, Trent created the aforementioned electronic drum sequence using the touch sensitive LCD. As an electrical engineer and patent attny, I was mesmerized. My personal favorite and has been one of my favorite songs since 1994, was Hurt. As soon as the introductory swirling wind sound began, I started jumped, excited to know what was about to happen…and then it kicked in, Trent’s confessional plea “I hurt myself today”. The crowd went nuts. As the end of one of the greatest concept albums of all time, I cannot find a place for it anywhere than at the very end of the set, particularly when the last suicidal blast happens at the close, and the power struggle is lost. While I enjoyed In This Twilight, I felt its placement was poor. The sentiment of Hurt is so powerful, and although out of context from the rest of the album, it loses some of the cumulative meaning of the concept of Downward Spiral, anyone with familiarity with the album is surely aware enough to pull it together themselves.

All in all, the show was incredible both visually and musically. I missed a large part of the energy being a wallflower stuck in the stands, but the music more than made up for it.

Setlist:
99,000
1,000,000
Letting You Get Away
Discipline
March of the Pigs
Head Down
The Frail
Reptile
Closer
Gave Up
The Warning
The Great Destroyer
Ghosts 21
Ghosts 14
Ghosts 19
Ghosts Piggy
The Greater Good
Pinion
Wish
Terrible Lie
Survivalism
Ghosts 31
Only
The Hand that Feeds
Head Like a Hole

Encore
Echoplex
The Beginning of the End
God Given
Hurt
In This Twilight

By Cory from BackseatSandbar.com
Photos by James Crisp